[HN Gopher] London Underground Dot Matrix Typeface
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London Underground Dot Matrix Typeface
Author : nickswalker
Score : 420 points
Date : 2023-06-17 05:52 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| throw0101a wrote:
| For more British-y rail stuff, check out Geoff Marshall's
| channel:
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/@geofftech2/videos
|
| A few years ago, he and his girlfriend/partner (Vicki) visited
| all (then) 2,563 railway stations in England, Wales, and
| Scotland:
|
| * http://allthestations.co.uk
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Stations
|
| * https://www.youtube.com/c/allthestations
|
| * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16461196
| ggambetta wrote:
| Heh, reminds me of the early 90s, when I was making my first
| attempts at complete videogames. I fell in love with the
| Lucasfilm games, specifically Monkey Island, so I started to
| build my own graphic adventure engine.
|
| I wanted to have the same look, and I naively thought the same
| fonts would be important (and conveniently ignored the question
| of how to make high quality art, since I suck as an artist). So I
| got some graph paper and copied the two fonts by hand, pixel by
| pixel, off the screen -- the bold font with an outline used for
| dialogue, and the skinnier font used for the UI.
|
| I never finished that graphic adventure (mainly due to not really
| having a plot, not due to technical difficulties), but the fonts
| looked pretty convincing! I think I still have that graph paper
| with the fonts in some box in the basement.
|
| PS: OMG, I found an actual screenshot!
| https://gabrielgambetta.com/files/ne2.png Please enjoy my
| terrible 3D Studio skills and even wrose pixel art skills XD
| qingcharles wrote:
| Also see British Rail which had an equally outsized effect on UK
| typography, and was (and continues to be) very beautiful in my
| eyes:
|
| https://britishrailmanual.com/
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Corporate_Identit...
| encyclic wrote:
| I backed the British Rail Corporate Identity Manual project on
| Kickstarter. It's a wonderful book. My copies were slightly
| damaged in transit and they were replaced. I still have the 3
| slightly damaged ones (dings on the cover, mostly) and if
| anyone wants them you can have them for the price of postage
| from the US. Ping me at the email in my bio.
| lying4fun wrote:
| This is great
| adrianmsmith wrote:
| I wish Vienna, Austria used nice fonts worth copying in their
| electronic signs, but alas... https://imgur.com/CQ1dYqk
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Lol it's like each character was developed in a vacuum and
| someone forget to tell the W creator there was a width limit
| until too late. Maybe an allegory to modern corporate software
| development there...
| jjgreen wrote:
| Oof, that's grim typography, my condolences
| gareve wrote:
| thanks, i hate it
| mortenjorck wrote:
| Wow, that looks like a scalable font was rasterized at a
| resolution where hinting would be required... but the font
| didn't actually have hinting.
| sdsrgdrtgh wrote:
| There is something vaguely solipsistic about this project--the
| creator apparently didn't try to contact TfL to ask if the
| designer of these displays was still around. Meanwhile Tfl put a
| lot of effort into memorializing their typographic tradition:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIAxVW-9fRo
|
| Without meaning to sneer, I can't help noticing this project
| represents a really trivial engagement with typography (dot
| matrix characters are really simply to copy). There's no craft
| involved, obviously, and not necessarily any taste either.
| Typography and graphic design in general are full of those
| things. Maybe the designers of the signage would have been able
| to shed some light on those aspects...
| csilverman wrote:
| What exactly were you expecting, a thesis project or
| documentary or something? As far as I can tell, petykowski just
| wanted to recreate the typefaces used on the Underground's
| digital signage. That's fine. Not everything has to be some
| magnum opus.
|
| I'm speaking as a graphic designer who's been obsessed with
| typography for decades. Craft and taste are qualities I
| ordinarily pay a lot of attention to, and if petykowski had
| talked to anyone affiliated with these typefaces, I'm sure it
| would have been fascinating. But it's also important to
| remember that these faces are not in the same category as a
| high-end serif or something. They serve a bluntly functional
| purpose. The medium for which they're designed is entirely
| different. Of course they're simple and easy to copy; that's
| the point.
|
| So I'm not sure how you are defining "craft" or "taste" here.
| These designs are crisp and legible. Your comment feels a
| little like somebody looking at an icon of Clarus the Dogcow
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow) and saying "Ah, but
| where's the dimensionality? Where's the realism? Can this truly
| be considered a rendering of an animal? How lazy."
|
| I personally love pixel/dot-matrix typefaces. I hadn't known
| about this project, so I'm grateful that somebody went to the
| trouble of doing this.
| ryanf wrote:
| What is the point of this reply? This is a set of font files,
| not an oral history project. The creator is not claiming that
| this is evidence of their craft or taste.
| zgluck wrote:
| Makes me think of...
|
| In my experience, there are primarily two kinds of graphical
| designers. (I don't have direct experience working with font
| designers, but I imagine they are kind of similar.)
|
| 1. Those who are great at it. They also tend to be humble and
| understand that often excruciating and boring iteration is
| critical in producing something great. When you find someone
| like this, hold on to them, whatever the cost.
|
| 2. Those who really want to be great at it but kinda aren't.
| They tend to develop a smug asshole attitude, perhaps as a
| defense mechanism. They often think their first iteration is
| a masterpiece that cannot be improved upon.
|
| And there's a much larger superset/variant of the last kind
| that essentially consists of smug assholes who define
| themselves as being able to appreciate "good design", which
| invariably is defined as Apple's style of design.
| tialaramex wrote:
| For "London Underground Medium", it's almost certain this
| technology is character based (it's not archaic enough to be
| hand-crafted values) and so somebody with even test access to a
| 1996 stock (ie Jubilee Line trains) can presumably tell one to
| display notices with the desired characters: F K Qq U V X Y Z and
| take a photo without it ever being in service.
|
| On the other hand, the 1995 stock is very similar, same vendor,
| same era, likely identical display panels so I'd expect you could
| collect some of this data (e.g. London Zoo is accessed via the
| Northern Line, and that's a Z right there if the display mentions
| this) from those trains and assume it's the same.
| Symbiote wrote:
| K should be easy to get when the next station is Kingsbury, and
| Q is available at the following stop, Queensbury. F from
| Finchley Road.
|
| U might show as "London Underground" at some point.
|
| Does V show in "Change for the Victoria Line"? I can't remember
| if these trains show that.
| gareve wrote:
| After London City Airport comes "King George V"
| seanhunter wrote:
| There is the tube stop called "Victoria" also.
|
| They have done a great job on these fonts btw. They are
| instantly recognisable to any Londoner.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I think fonts and typography all across the UK is
| excellent. See also British Rail, and all the road signs.
|
| As a Britisher exported to the USA, the fonts and
| typography of government projects here regularly gives me
| the heebie-jeebies. I can't even bear to look at the
| highway signage.
| grishka wrote:
| _London fonts_ in general are very recognizable. The print
| one with rhomboid dots, too.
| raphlinus wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnston_(typeface)
|
| Agreed, it's extremely distinctive.
| Symbiote wrote:
| It needs to be a stop on the Jubilee (or possibly Bakerloo)
| line, as the relevant dot matrix is only installed on one
| (or possibly two) types of train.
| seanhunter wrote:
| If we're talking about the same thing they have that same
| font on the circle and district line, which goes through
| victoria. Source: am on a district line train now and
| went through Victoria a few minutes ago
| mortenjorck wrote:
| The London Underground Regular font struck me as quite peculiar
| when I encountered it on a trip a few years back. The decision to
| lower the baseline for uppercase letters is highly nonstandard -
| I'm not aware of any other Latin-based digital signage system in
| the world that does that.
|
| I wonder if it was the result of a study that concluded
| visibility was slightly increased over a consistent baseline due
| to the extra pixel of height for caps. Whatever the reason, it
| certainly gives the signs a quirky character (no pun intended).
| inconceivable wrote:
| it also greatly increases the visibility / contrast for ALL-
| CAPS which looks to be quite common in these signs. while
| allowing for the qgyj letters that descend one pixel below
| baseline
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| I think it may just be because it looks less weird than only
| pushing up the characters with descenders, like in HD44780
| LCDs.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I might be feeling particularly cynical but I don't get the
| feeling these were based off any study.
|
| Anyway, it works ok for most of the characters but it's quite
| jarring for the Ki because it looks like the K descends into
| the i's cell (though it doesn't).
| Symbiote wrote:
| Britain has several commissioned fonts for public signage [1]
| [2] [etc], and generally has very high quality road and rail
| signage -- in most cases both the design and the content.
|
| I'd be surprised if these fonts were _not_ based on a study,
| or developed as part of a study to find a particularly
| legible dot-matrix font.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_(typeface)
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_Alphabet
|
| Edit: I think we need TfL document 1-312 "Automated audio and
| visual information in public areas of stations and trains",
| but I can't find it online. Only the newer standards using
| LCD displays:
|
| TfL Digital display standards:
| https://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-digital-display-standards.pdf
|
| London Underground Good Practice Guide: Onboard Electronic
| Signing: http://www.signdesignsociety.co.uk/images/Knowledgeb
| ase/TfL_...
| throwaheyy wrote:
| It makes the capitals stand out more and I imagine it could be
| helpful for visitors who may have trouble remembering long
| sequences of Latin characters and may pictorially memorize the
| capital letters instead.
| bschne wrote:
| Was wondering the same thing. If you look at some of the
| station displays pictured, you can see that there's not much
| space between lines, so I assume this is to have space for
| descenders without clashing with the lines below (more like
| raising the baseline for non-capital letters).
| cjrp wrote:
| Yep, see the screenshot with Epping on the display for
| example.
| phireal wrote:
| I've always assumed it's a nod to the original underground
| signage which had offset capital letters (https://upload.wikime
| dia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/London_U...).
| riverdweller wrote:
| Lovely stuff. Now someone please use this in a Bioshock-like
| adventure based in London's semi-apocalyptic west end.
| stevedh wrote:
| https://fallout4london.com/ ?
| Symbiote wrote:
| Section 2.13 (page 32) has the matrix used on tram stops:
| https://content.tfl.gov.uk/tramlink-stop-signs-standard.pdf
|
| P56 has what looks like the same font for London Overground:
| https://content.tfl.gov.uk/overground-signs-standard.pdf
|
| And P47 for the DLR: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/dlr-signs-
| standard.pdf
| signalToNose wrote:
| Stockholm subway had a nice font. Digital version is called
| esseltube. https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esseltub
| Findecanor wrote:
| That's a _printed_ font though.
|
| BTW, Stockholm's subway used to up until very recently have
| dot-matrix LED signs with what I think did a neat embedded-
| programming trick. They could switch between a static message
| and scrolling text, but the scrolling text was _slanted_.
|
| I think the slanting was done by varying the _timing_ for each
| row of LEDs. The bottom row was scrolled first, then the next
| above it after a short delay, and so on.
|
| I have been thinking of trying that trick for making scrolling
| text legible on a keyboard with backlit keys in a traditional
| row-staggered configuration. But I would first need a keyboard
| PCB for DIY with individually addressable LEDs.
| psychphysic wrote:
| Interesting. I think the easiest way would to have each row
| on its own shift registers. It'd be trivial but if each pixel
| was on LED you could only slant at 45deg intervals, which
| would be annoying.
|
| Maybe make each pixel 2LEDx1LED (vertical).
|
| This would be the equivalent of shifting it by adding an
| offset to the characterset bitmap that depends on the
| position vertically in glyph.
| jrmg wrote:
| This italic scrolling was pretty standard on any LED sign in
| the 80s and 90s. I always assumed that, rather than a
| stylistic choice, it was just caused by the lines updating
| one after another because of update or display multiplexing
| speed.
| Jaxan wrote:
| I've always loved how the capital letter extend below the
| baseline.
| vr46 wrote:
| Neato - I made an RPI bus arrival sign for my desk, wondering if
| I can repurpose these fonts.
| c0wb0yc0d3r wrote:
| Does it show you the actual bus schedule, or does it it show
| some other information?
| signalToNose wrote:
| The Madonna video Ray of light is filmed in one of the few
| stations that still have the old font
| Findecanor wrote:
| I think those are all of Stockholm's subway, station Hotorget
| and the Central Station. The director Jonas Akerlund likes to
| sneak in images of his home town. He also used a clip from a
| game show on Swedish TV without permission.
| JulesRosser wrote:
| Love this. Would be a great addition to the 'model my local tube
| station' project that's probably going to remain on my to-do list
| for ever
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Ha ha I dreamed of doing that as a kid not living in London but
| thinking the tube is pretty cool
| agumonkey wrote:
| Very soothing, I fail to know if it's nostalgia or if these
| geometric primitive based fonts are really massaging your brain
| positively
| srboyd wrote:
| Great work!
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| How is this different from any dot matrix typeface of that time
| period? I doubt these fonts were made just for London
| Underground.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if the font is unique to the London
| Underground.
|
| At least the first display's font is fairly distinct, I haven't
| noticed it elsewhere. The bottom of the capital letters is a
| pixel lower than the lowercase letters.
|
| Printed signs from Transport for London use Johnston Sans,
| noticeable with the diamond-shape dots on "i" and "j":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnston_(typeface)
| dan1234 wrote:
| Looks pretty similar to the font used on the Tyne and Wear
| Metro[0], though I have heard the metro's signage is made up
| of hand-me-downs from the tube anyway.
|
| [0]https://external-
| content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2F...
| sschueller wrote:
| I did a similar thing re-creating the font used by the VBZ in
| Zurich, Switzerland.
|
| https://sschueller.github.io/posts/vbz-fahrgastinformation/#...
| unwind wrote:
| Very cool, thanks for sharing!
|
| I'm not a native speaker of English, but pretty sure that the
| word "tic" [sic] is not what you want. Look into apostrophes
| [1].
|
| [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27_(disambiguation)
| sschueller wrote:
| I recently got to see the official documentation on the
| departure sign and it refers to what I called the "tic" as
| "Hochkomma" which would be a "quote" symbol.
| fidotron wrote:
| The actual physical display here is great too. Certainly the
| London ones a key part of the aesthetic is the orange LEDs. How
| is the brightness and power consumption?
| dom96 wrote:
| I built a programmable one a while back[1] with the primary
| use case being TfL departures. I have hooked it up to a smart
| plug with energy consumption metrics and the max it uses is
| around 0.53Wh every 10 minutes.
|
| At one point I considered selling it, but with the amount of
| legal stuff around CE marking I got demotivated. Plus these
| days you have https://tidbyt.com/.
|
| 1 - https://twitter.com/d0m96/status/1427055272980328460
| tialaramex wrote:
| One thing I couldn't figure out (but you might know) for
| Tidybyt was: Can it be told to use a different server,
| supposing that the present makers went away? Without that,
| I have to consider the lifetime of the device is entwined
| with the lifetime of the makers.
| matja wrote:
| = 3.18 W
| netsharc wrote:
| The font looks like a familiar one from Windows, maybe Tahoma?
| sschueller wrote:
| I recently found out that it's a custom font designed by a
| "Herrn Buser" known as "Buser BoV Schrift". It was
| specifically made to be readable by visually impaired persons
| from a larger distance.
| autonomousErwin wrote:
| I always wondered what tech/programming was behind the
| notification boards on trains and in train stations. Do each
| station custom build their own solution, or is there a company
| who provides this to TFL/UK stations?
|
| There's a couple of pubs in London (specifically close to
| underground stations) which have a notification boards above the
| bar for the next trains coming in and peering behind the
| notification display I see a Raspberry Pi dangling...
| Symbiote wrote:
| I think the companies providing railway signalling systems,
| like Thales, Alstom, Hitachi, Siemens, Westinghouse, would be
| most likely to supply this sort of system -- or more likely,
| supply the system behind it but outsource the displays.
|
| Here's the company that manufactured the ones for National
| Rail: https://trueform.com/products/next-train-indicator-nti/
| fredoralive wrote:
| Actual on-station signage will mostly be from a set of standard
| parts from railway suppliers.
|
| https://wiki.openraildata.com/ has information about various
| open data feeds available for the railways in Great Britain,
| and https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/open-data-users/ for TfL. Third
| party solutions for things like railway adjacent bars
| presumably use one of these to get departures board info etc.
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(page generated 2023-06-17 23:01 UTC)